Darkness
by AlianneLovesLiam
Summary: The dark can be good for some people, bad for others. A series of one-shots about how Tamora Pierce's characters see the dark. T to be safe, mentions of drinking and death. I don't own the characters or Tortall, thank God. It'd all go down in flames.
1. Chapter 1-George

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or anything of Tamora Pierce's Tortall world. I just own what isn't recognizable.**

The dark didn't bother George. He liked the anonymity, the ability to blend in, go unnoticed. The _power_ it gave him over other people of the night. That was one of the reasons he had loved being the Rogue. When his people came out, the dark was ruler of the land.


	2. Chapter 2-Alanna

Alanna couldn't stand the dark. It reminded her of Trebond. The majority of the year, darkness and snow covered her father's-now Coram's-lands. Cold penetrated thickly insulated walls. People died. It grew darker and darker and colder and colder until she didn't think that she could stand it anymore and why why _why _couldn't she just leave and where was the happiness and why was Maude crying and I'll never be cheerful again. The dark wasn't good. Better to be in the sun and the warmth. The spring, where people started to hope and life came again.


	3. Chapter 3-Jon

Jon liked the dark. Nobody could see him cry in the dark. He didn't have to worry that people were going to find him. Either when the loud winds and harsh rain of a spring storm attacked the castle or when the soft peeping of frogs and the chirping of crickets harmonized, the dark was a refuge most of the time. But then there were the dark, harsh nights like when Alanna said 'I _refuse_ to marry you, Jon!" or when Baird's words 'She may not survive, Jon,' reverberated around his skull like a death toll he didn't want Thayet to die he just wanted to know why this was happening to him why people were suffering why was _he _suffering why were women being beat by their husbands why were children dying of hunger and why why why couldn't this go right?


	4. Chapter 4-Raoul

Raoul hated the dark. More precisely, he hated being alone in the dark. _Don't think about it, don't think about it, do not think, Raoul! _The dark let him think. It let him-made him-think about the way Francis had stared blankly at the ceiling, the way Jon had screamed Alan's name, the way he couldn't stop it, the way he had left his best friend lying there in a pool of blood to save his own unworthy hide. The way it said _"The bottle is just over there, Rauol. Just pick it up and drink. If you were really Yalen's best friend, then why didn't you save him or die next to him. You are a failure! You failed. Failure. Failure. Failure. Failure. Failure.", _and he had to stop it so he grabbed the bottle and drank, drank until it didn't make sense and why; where was he, why was he here, why didn't he just _end_?

Then the nights when Buri was there. Her body pressed to his and neither of them was perfect alone but together they were; overwhelming contentment and happiness and he finally _understood._ It wasn't his fault. It was dark and he loved touching Buri's muscled body and it was good.


	5. Chapter 5-Gareth the Elder of Naxen

Duke Gareth the Elder of Naxen's darkness was darker than anything. He was wracked with guilt, laying next to Rowena in the first years of their marriage and looking over at her, pregnant with their son Gary and _hating _himself for not fully loving the woman who gave him everything, who was a perfect wife and was hurt by his distance but if she knew _he _knew she couldn't stand it.

Then his tiny son Gary laying in the cradle in the next room gave him an excuse to leave that bed where he was expected to make love to his wife but couldn't because he didn't love her like he should. He learned, though. He learned to love Rowena.

Three years later, Rowena died giving birth to an underdeveloped boy who would have been their second son, but he died along with his mother.

He hated lying in the room where she had died and feeling free at last.

Then a year later, the darkness descended again. His love, the woman he wanted to marry but had been to stupid to ask her father before she was married off, died. Alianne of Trebond nee Declan's Ridge, who had died giving birth to his worst enemy's, Alan of Trebond's, children, was dead and Gareth knew that he had to do something but also knew he couldn't, so he left the children alone and hoped for the best.

Ten years later, he saw her son, Alan. Delicate, redheaded, and fierce like his mother, he darkened Duke Gareth's darkness. He didn't acknowledge his power, just like his father, and that was going to bring pain to more people than himself.

Then, twenty years later, Alanna brought her four-year-old Aly in when she checked his health and the girl gave him _his_ Aly's smile and she looked just like her and the darkness wasn't so dark because he knew that Aly was back and that they'd be together again if the new mage, Numair Samalin, would just mess up one time spell.


	6. Chapter 6-Daine

Daine's darkness wasn't dark in a normal sense. She wasn't pressed on every side by pure black. She saw through images that the People sent her. The dark was never lonely. It was good and friendly. Now, at least.

Then the cold nights when the People hid, she was left with Numair snoring beside her but it wasn't the same because he didn't get it. He was asleep and he didn't miss his parents and wonder why they had died. It wasn't her fault; her brain knew that. Her heart didn't. It insisted that if she had been there, the bandits wouldn't have burned the house or killed everything. But the dark lessened and the guilt faded with the morning light.


	7. Chapter 7-Alex

Darkness was Alex's favorite time. He loved the way secrets weren't so secret in the dark. The way that people who wandered dark, stuffy palace halls _knew _that the 16-year-old Lady Selanea was sleeping with her father's best friend, Lord Flannigan, who people thought was the most stiff, conservative person on the King's Council; they knew that the Queen became sick every night; they knew that the Palace Guard was slacking in the east wing.

But they didn't know Alex. None of them, in the dark or the light, knew about the boy whose existence was dark, who was a dark boy, who wasn't supposed to be alive, who was a disgrace.

Alex liked it that way. He liked it very much, in fact.


	8. Chapter 8-Liam Ironarm

Liam Ironarm liked the dark. The dark gave him a chance to rest, if only for a while. It gave him a chance to think over his life, to wonder if he had made the right choice, becoming the Shang Dragon. He didn't have a purpose, really.

The dark was also good because people didn't fight him in the dark; they knew that they'd most likely lose.

**A/N- Feedback (reviews) is appreciated. I also own none, absolutely none, of the characters that are recognizable. Thanks!**

** AlianneLovesLiam **


	9. Chapter 9-Kalasin of Conte

**A/N- If want to request a certain character, PM me or leave a review. On with the story!**

Kalasin of Conte only liked the dark in certain places.

For one, she hated the palace in the dark. At night, evil deals were made between crooked lords; plots were made against her and her family. Men tried to force her to do things that she knew would eventually have to do but didn't want to do then.

Then again, the Lower City at night was fun. She danced, drank, and kissed men with no regret. Then went back to her other darkness. The dark that really was dark.


	10. Chapter 10-Ralon of Malven

Dark was perfect for Ralon of Malven. He could plan things in the dark. He wasn't alone in his evil in the dark, though not many touched his realm of hate.

Hate. What a word easily said. It fed jealousy, greed, lust, anger, insanity.

And him. Him and his darkness.


	11. Chapter 11 Sarai Balitang

The dark was awful for Sarai. Nobody saw her in the dark.

She loved the light, the rightness, the heat of the day. Also the way that, in the light, all the people that _watched _her. The people that saw her in all her glory. The raka, though she didn't know it yet, saw hope in her graceful form and blinding beauty. And when she left, they saw darkness. Their hope was gone.

Or so they thought.


	12. Chapter 12-AUTHOR'S NOTE

AUTHOR'S NOTE-

Sorry for even having this note here. Seriously, I am.

Anyway, if you want a specific character (not out of the Protector of the Small Quartet, I haven't read those in a long, long time and don't have the books), PM me or review. If you just want to offer constructive criticism, leave a review or PM me. I'll respond promptly.


	13. Chapter 13 Numair Samalin

A/N- I haven't worked on this story in quite a while, but I received a request from Lioness Storm to write a chapter on Numair. Here goes! I hope that I do Numair justice.

The dark didn't often perturb Numair. After all, he was a mage. He could just light the room without any conscious effort when he was awake after night had fallen. People thought that him staying up all night at his studies was normal for a mage- and he would agree, if he were a normal mage.

Mage he was. Normal he was not. He didn't allow his power to go to his head like he had before. The darkness and greed that existed in all people, including himself, had driven him to find out that power was an ego trip, a way of raising yourself up by lowering other, and that he wanted nothing to do with it.

He remembered sweet things in the dark. He remembered his baby sister, her bouncy curls framing her dimpled face, the way Orzone had looked when he was normal, finding a flower in his jail cell, hopeful.

In the dark were other things, darker, colder, soulless things. Like selling that sweet baby girl- he hadn't stopped the slavers, at least, trying to best Orzone when he should have been content and driving then both to insanity, killing the flower because he still had been mad and didn't want hope, he had wonted power.

Daine helped in the dark. She woke him up during the nightmares and held him, gave him logical-and moral-explanations as to why it wasn't his fault, shared her own guilt and sorrow over her actions, and he comforted her as she consoled.

Darkness was bittersweetness tinged with regret. Sweet when he made love to Daine and thought of what he had gained, bitter when he thought of what he had lost, regretful when he thought of what he had let himself lose.


End file.
